ecargo7 Sep 2006

Okay--as promised, I did come back to this. And, no, no--there's enough miserable verse, in every sense, available! I'm still ambivalent about the wealth of metaphors/images--you are right that they are all pastoral, and most are really effective. I love the gentle declines of rusted gates and fraying fabrics--still usable, but inexorably fading. I also like the nostalgia of this, the not-overdone sense of regret and moving forward and fond remembrance. I want this to be more metered--it's almost iambic pentameter, but your stresses fall apart in places (and I'm not saying it has to be straight iambs, which is hard to do without sounding stilted). For example, compare this lovely stanza (pretty much straight iambic pentameter):

When the rivers claim a cargo of lost jewels
To ferry them o'er distant plain and crest
While the trees can only watch in silent schools
And shiver at the spindle wind, undressed
I will try to gather up a gleaming pool
Then see it slip through fingers tightly pressed

With this, which seems more awkward:

When the vineyards grow a grape to make a potion
Of nostalgia and a sorrow for what's lost
When I drink to lonely days and sad devotion
And every hour is a cobweb flecked with frost
On the rusted gateway of a silly notion
Then our last words will disperse - with no riposte.

It's sooo close. I want it to be there.

Okay, my little nits aside, this is nicely done in tone and technique--you've written an olde tymey pastoral poem that doesn't sound horribly dated or terribly derivative, which is quite a feat. You've come a long way, baby. ;)